Karnataka's ex-BJP minister attempts suicide

Karnataka's former BJP minister S.A. Ramdas late Tuesday attempted to commit suicide by hanging in a guesthouse in this city of palaces, about 150km from Bangalore.

"Ramdas is out of danger though under observation in a private hospital," a party source told IANS early Wednesday.

According to unconfirmed reports, Ramdas, a 54-year-old bachelor, was upset after he learnt that a woman, who claimed that he married her recently, threatened to expose his relationship with audio and video evidence.

"We learnt from the guesthouse staff that Ramdas was rushed to Apollo hospital after he was founding hanging in the room where he checked in earlier in the day," the source said on the condition of anonymity.

The woman, by name Premkumari, in late 30s, told local news channels that though she had known Ramdas since five years, they had come close in the recent past after he had promised to marry her and look after her, as she was a widow with two children from first marriage.

"He (Ramdas) threatened to commit suicide if I speak to media and revealed our conversations, which I had recorded in my mobile handset," Premkumari was heard telling news anchors in local language (Kannada).

Even as Premkumari was briefing the media Tuesday evening outside a government office where she works, Ramdas reported to have called her on mobile and threatened to consume poison if she did not stop talking to the media.

Ramdas, who held the medical education portfolio in the first Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state, lost to the Congress candidate in the May 2013 state legislative assembly elections from the Krishnaraja constituency in the Old Mysore region.